NAU.OH.97.68.45B
161257
Ollie Hawkins (Part 2)
Interviewed by Delia Ceballos Muñoz
January 31, 2000
Muñoz: Alright, let’s go back to Richland Shipyard. And you worked at the shipyards?
Hawkins: Yup.
Muñoz: And you were saying you wanted to join the service.
Hawkins: I wanted to join the service, but I wanted to go into the Waves, and at that time they wasn’t acceptin’ black women into the Waves.
Muñoz: Really?
Hawkins: They turned me down. They didn’t give me no good reason, but I knew what it was.
Muñoz: You thought it was your color then, huh?
Hawkins: Uh-huh.
Muñoz: Okay, so then you decided to stay in Richland?
Hawkins: I went to work in the shipyard, because like I said, I had three brothers in the service, and a nephew, and a lot of other friends, [unclear]. The war was going on, and I wanted to help build ships, so that’s [unclear] shipyard.
Muñoz: So what did you do?
Hawkins: I was a welder-got to be a certified journeyman welder.
Muñoz: Did you have to take a test to get certified?
Hawkins: We had to go to school. They trained us in the shipyard. We went to school to learn how to weld. It was three different phases of welding you had to learn. You had to learn how to do vertical, overhead, and flat. That’s the three main things you had to learn about welding. Like when you weld something together up overhead, that’s what they call overhead. The vertical was when you went....
Muñoz: Up and down.
Hawkins: Joined together. And down flat was like that. So I learned how.
Muñoz: How long did you do that?
Hawkins: ’Til just before the war end. I saw where the war was comin’ to an end, and I decided to go into government work. I took the examination there for the postal service, and I worked for the postal service until I retired in 1987, with thirty-three years, five months, and twenty-seven days as a postal clerk.
Muñoz: That’s great.
Hawkins: And I’m still.... I joined the union, and I worked in the interest of women, immigration, and women, better working conditions. And I’m still connected with the American Postal Workers’ Union. I still belong to a coalition of labor union women, and I still work for the betterment of women in the post office, which we call POWER, Post Office Women Equal Rights group. I still work with that. And I’m working with.... We’re building a park in Richland in honor of women that worked in the shipyards. And I’m one of the honorees for that now. I’m on that committee, and [unclear].
Muñoz: That’s great.
Hawkins: I was just on CNN a couple of weeks ago.
Muñoz: Really?!
Hawkins: A couple of weeks ago. I told Jean I wish I’d brought the tape. They sent me a tape of the CNN interview.
Muñoz: I want to see it! Maybe we can have a copy. I’ll send money and get a copy of it and mail it to me.
Hawkins: I told Jean I was gonna send it back to her. Everybody said, "Oh, I saw you on CNN!" They was all from Los Angeles, "Oh, I saw you on CNN!"
Muñoz: So you’re a celebrity.
Hawkins: But I worked with all of it.
Muñoz: Great.
Hawkins: But now, since I’ve gotten up in age, they keep tellin’ me, "C’mon, come do that, come do...." I say, "Y’all forget I’m old now. I’m not young anymore."
Muñoz: And you were on CNN because of POWER?
Hawkins: No, the work with the park.
Muñoz: Building the park.
Hawkins: They did the interviews, they’re trying to get federal funding for the park.
Muñoz: Alright. We talked about the Forty-niner celebration, and that’s the only one that you remember? That was before the powwows.
Hawkins: Yeah, powwow.
Muñoz: And then the powwows came, the Fourth of July. And then was there any other celebrations?
Hawkins: No. Out at the city park they’d always have the carnival, you know.
Muñoz: How about within the African American community, what type of celebrations did they have?
Hawkins: We didn’t have anything. The Nineteenth of June was the only thing we really had, but we didn’t have much celebration. The only thing we’d do, uptown they would tell 'em [unclear] let the blacks get drunk and fight, whatever, but don’t arrest none of 'em unless they do somethin’ real bad. They turned their back on whatever we were doin’, [as long as] it wasn’t anything real bad. You know, Nineteenth of June is supposedly black folks’ day, for the freein’ of the slaves, you know. Yeah, Nineteenth of June is like Cinco de Mayo.
Muñoz: No, the Sixteenth of September.
Hawkins: Sixteenth of September and Cinco de Mayo too [unclear].
Muñoz: Yeah, independence of the slaves, okay. And then where was this located, the Nineteenth of June, your celebration-uptown?
Hawkins: See, this was just the south side. Jack The Rabbit, and Joe Griego had a saloon. That was the only saloon you could go into-Griego’s. So the black folk got drunk and danced, had parties in houses. Wasn’t nothin’ big. Now, like in San Francisco and everything, Nineteenth of June, they have a big celebration.
Muñoz: And we talked about the churches, which is the Baptist Church on Alvin Street, and then you decided to change and go to the Methodist one on San Francisco.
Hawkins: Yeah. And then they had Spring Hill Baptist Church, which was [unclear] they moved it [unclear]. That’s where Spring Hill Baptist is now.
Muñoz: Down O’Leary?
Hawkins: Yeah, it’s on O’Leary. Used to be up there on Coconino Avenue. That used to be Coconino Avenue up there. I don’t know what it is now. Is it still Coconino Avenue?
Muñoz: Uh-huh, still Coconino. So you had that Spring Hill Baptist Church.
Hawkins: Baptist Church was up there, uh-huh.
Muñoz: And then what other churches? Is that it?
Hawkins: Well, they had a Church of God in Christ, but Holiness Church, that didn’t materialize too much. They had a little house meetings or something, I don’t know.
Muñoz: Okay, let’s see here. How about when an African American would pass away, when they’d die, where was the cemetery?
Hawkins: [unclear] same thing.
Muñoz: The same thing. How about services?
Hawkins: They had 'em in the churches, like they do. Compton was the undertaker at that time. My oldest brother died in 1928, nineteenth of June, 1928. My grandmother died the twentieth of January, 1930. And my sister died the day I left going to college, September 5, 1935. And they’re buried out there. And of course [unclear] her father just died in ’89. He’s in a crypt out there. I went out yesterday and looked at the grave.
Muñoz: How about weddings? Do you remember the weddings that were taking place among the African American people?
Hawkins: I don’t remember too much. The only one I can remember real good was when Esther and Travis Morrison got married. Pearl Pope had a big wedding for [her daughter] in Charles Escoto’s Hall, where they had the wedding. That was the biggest wedding [unclear]. I don’t remember anybody else’s wedding during that time.
Muñoz: And baptismals?
Hawkins: They used to have baptizing in the Seventh-day Adventist Church there on Northview. They had a Seventh-day Adventist Church on Northview. They used their pool to baptize people in. I think the pastor’s name at that time was Baker, if I’m not mistaken.
Muñoz: Traditional foods , like your mom came from Louisiana, that’s where her roots are at, right-and your roots.
Hawkins: Uh-huh.
Muñoz: Did your mom ever talk about her mother, where she came from?
Hawkins: No. I just finally got my grandmother’s death certificate. My grandmother died here in 1930, and I’m trying to work on the family tree. And I sent for her death certificate, and I sent 'em six dollars, because I knew I got my brother’s death certificate, so I sent six dollars. They sent it back and told me that it would cost ten dollars, and I had to have it certified. So I sent 'em the ten dollars, I had it certified. They wanted to make sure I wasn’t getting it for some purpose of obtaining some kind of legal procedures or something. So then I sent it back, sent 'em the ten dollars, certified. Notarized! That’s what it was-notarized. I had to pay ten dollars for that. I sent it back to Phoenix. I had to send it three times. So finally I sat down and I wrote 'em a letter and said, "Now, look, that was my grandmother, she died at 219 North Kendrick Street on January 20, 1930, and I’m trying to do a family tree of my family. First I sent you ten dollars; the next thing you did, it would cost ten dollars, and then I had to pay ten dollars.... Now here I got again. Does it take an act of Congress for me to get my grandmother’s death certificate?!" They sent it to me.
Muñoz: Good for you!
Hawkins: Three times, I had to go three times.
Muñoz: You sound like your mother-you’re quite the fighter!
Hawkins: I was real mad. I told 'em, "Do I have to get ahold of my congressman, Diane Feinstein or Barbara Boxer, or go to Willy Branson [phonetic], all my political friends?" because I’m a staunch Democrat, and I worked with all them political guys up there. Now I can’t do like I want to do [unclear].
Muñoz: Do you remember the Depression here in Flagstaff?
Hawkins: Uh-huh.
Muñoz: What was that like, and how did it affect your family?
Hawkins: It didn’t affect us, because like I was tellin’, during deer season, the folks were out there huntin’ deer. They had a big buck and a big doe, and everybody was goin’ out there killin’ a big buck [unclear]. "Take it down there to Addie and them children." We had all the venison we could eat. Had a man that did trappin’ for bear. We had bear meat. And by this bein’ big pinto bean country, when they raised all them pinto beans, when they through gathering the pinto beans, then they’d tell my mother, "Come on out, bring all of 'em, and gather." Then we’d go out and gather, and we had big bean boils. Anything that they had plenty of, they’re gonna send it to Mama and the children. "Send it down there to Addie and those children." We didn’t see no.... Mother used to work-it used to be the Beckwood girls, Catherine and Mary Beckwood. Ms. Beckwood was the matron at the college up there. She took care of the girls’ dormitory up there. And all the clothes, [unclear] got rid of clothes and all, give 'em to my mother.
Muñoz: For the kids?
Hawkins: For the kids-hand-me-downs. We had a lot of hand-me-downs.
Muñoz: So you were always clothed then?
Hawkins: Yeah, we always had clothes and shoes.
Muñoz: What dormitory was that?
Hawkins: That Ms. Beckwood run? They called her Lady "B." Lady Beckwood. I’ve forgotten, but it was one over there.
Muñoz: At the campus?
Hawkins: Yeah, uh-huh.
Muñoz: Okay, we’re getting close here to finishing. Do you remember any crime in Flagstaff?
Hawkins: Yeah, we had several people killin’ one another.
Muñoz: Where was this at?
Hawkins: One fellah killed one up there on South San Francisco just before you get to Clay Street. Carl Mangum was the district attorney then. We used to love to go.... He was quite a guy. He was a handsome fellah, and he could really argue a case. The people would just flock up there to the courthouse just to hear him present the cases. We had several people-one preacher killed a man about his girlfriend, I guess. Reverend Blanch [phonetic] killed Joe.... Yeah, we had several people that got killed like that. Reverend Blanch killed Joe [unclear] Joe’s wife. They got into argument.
Muñoz: Joe who?
Hawkins: I forget. I can’t think of Joe’s last name.
Muñoz: Okay. How about the red light district?
Hawkins: Oh, they had one woman down there on the River de Flag, her name was Carrie Lee. And then the woman had Casa del Norte. Marie had Casa del Norte. And then really it was over here, just before you get to the railroad track over there-Reenie [phonetic]. They had those houses.
Muñoz: What was her name again?
Hawkins: Her name was Reenie. And Carrie Lee and Marie. Marie had Casa del Norte, and Carrie Lee had the house right on the riverbank, on San Francisco Street, just on the corner with River de Flag. And Reenie was right over there. I can’t think of the name of the street now.
Muñoz: Butler? It used to be Clay?
Hawkins: No. You know where the old Chinese laundry was?
Muñoz: Yes.
Hawkins: Reenie was right on the corner, one block down, on the corner of that street and the first street [unclear]. I forget what the name of that street is now.
Muñoz: Verde? Or Agassiz?
Hawkins: Agassiz! Yeah, that’s what it was, was Agassiz-Phoenix Avenue and....
Muñoz: Were these women white women, black women, Hispanic women?
Hawkins: Carrie Lee was black. Marie was Spanish, because she had Casa del Norte, and Reenie was white. Reenie had black women that was maids. They wasn’t women in the house, they took care of whatever they did.
Muñoz: Okay, took care of the gentlemen, you mean?
Hawkins: No, the women....
Muñoz: The black women were the housekeepers?
Hawkins: Yeah, whatever they do, they serve 'em drink or whatever. They were mostly waitresses or something. They didn’t have an affair with the men.
Muñoz: They were like servants.
Hawkins: Yeah. And Carrie Lee had one-she had a black woman that served in her house, served the drinks and took care of, you know.... But I don’t know what Casa del Norte did, because Marie had a hotel, Del Norte Hotel.
Muñoz: Okay, Prohibition, during the bootlegging time....
Hawkins: Ohhh! Yeah, the poor black men went to jail a lot for selling the Indians whiskey. That was one of the things that they got in trouble for.
Muñoz: For selling the Indians whiskey?
Hawkins: Because they didn’t allow Indians to have whiskey, booze-they’d get on the warpath. And was a big thing. And then they sent you to Prescott. You went to Prescott to serve time. They’d put you in jail. The Revenue officers would pick you up for sellin’ the Indians whiskey. They’d send you to jail, you served time down in Prescott.
Muñoz: Wow.
Hawkins: Now the Indians can go in and buy all the booze they want to buy.
Muñoz: But before, it was against the law, huh?
Hawkins: Against the law, yeah. There used to be a lot of black people that pulled tricks on poor Indians. I had a lot of Indian friends: Jimmy Kewanwytewa that worked out at the Museum of Northern Arizona. They were very close, good friends of mine. I know their daughter and son live down in Phoenix. I don’t know Kewanwytewas was at the reunion or not, because I didn’t [unclear] like I wanted to.
Muñoz: When did you have this reunion?
Hawkins: The eighth, ninth, and tenth of this month. We were at Little America over there last Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.
Muñoz: Oh! What was it called, the reunion?
Hawkins: It was called Flagstaff High School’s Reunion.
Muñoz: Okay. What year?
Hawkins: It went from 1924 to 1955.
Muñoz: Oh, how interesting. So that’s where you met all your schoolmates.
Hawkins: Yeah, I met them this week. George Nackard’s wife, I just got off the phone talking, just before you came in.
Muñoz: Is that right?!
Hawkins: Uh-huh. Poor little George, [unclear].
Muñoz: Oh no. Let’s see, Prohibition. So these poor black men that sold whiskey to the Indians, did they make their own booze?
Hawkins: No, they’d go in the bar and buy. The Indians would give 'em the money to go buy it, and they’d go in and buy it and come back and give it to 'em. And then that’s when they’d catch 'em givin’ it to 'em. So they made money off of 'em. I guess if they paid five dollars for a pint of whiskey, then you would make a couple extra dollars on it, you know-somethin’ like that, I guess. But I had Jimmy Kewanwytewa, they was good friends of mine, and if they wanted some booze, they’d come and see me and I’d just go down there and get it, come on back and give it to 'em. I went to school with his children. But they were out at Colton, Northern Arizona Museum out there, and they were real good friends of mine. Sometimes they’d come and pick me up and I’d go out to their house and have dinner, and then I’d take a bottle [unclear]. But I’d never get in trouble doin’ it because we were doing it intelligently, you know. They were real good friends of mine. When the Indians would come into town and look for somebody out there on the street, they’d be runnin’ around lookin’ for somebody to get 'em some booze, and somebody who’d want to make some extra money. And then the Revenue people would see 'em, put 'em in jail.
Muñoz: The transportation during the time your mom had her kids here, did she ever own a car?
Hawkins: No. I remember my mother owned a truck. My brother used to work for the Flagstaff Furniture Company, and they got rid of their truck, so my mother bought that old truck so they could haul wood and get wood in for the winter.
Muñoz: Oh, from the furniture company?
Hawkins: Yeah, it used to be old Flagstaff Furniture Company. The Browns used to have it.
Muñoz: The Browns owned it-Flagstaff Furniture Company?
Hawkins: Uh-huh. My sister used to drive the truck. She loved it. And my brother would drive the truck. They’d go out in the woods and gather wood for the wintertime. That’s the reason why my mother bought it.
Muñoz: Great. Let’s see, medicine. What types of medicine were used at home at the time you were growing up?
Hawkins: Oh Lord, I don’t remember. They used all kinds of asfidity like any kind of disease come along, you wore asfidity around your neck. If you got a cold, you put kerosene on sugar. And then they had some kind of stuff, my mother had some kind of mulligum [phonetic] you could go out and pull the mulligum and they’d use it. They had all kinds of remedies, and they were good remedies too!
Muñoz: Yes!
Hawkins: I wish to goodness I could remember to get aholt of some of 'em now.
Muñoz: So you could use 'em, huh?
Hawkins: And rheumatism, they used to take worms and put 'em in the stove and they’d get oily, and then they’d rub with the oil that come out of the worms. There’s a lot of things that they did, old-fashioned stuff.
Muñoz: It’s a tradition that was passed down from family to family.
Hawkins: And see, my family’s got part Indian in 'em. My father was part Indian, and my grandmother was part Indian, and they had all those Indian traits too. I can’t remember them now. I wish to goodness I could think about a lot of 'em.
Muñoz: You mentioned a couple of doctors.
Hawkins: Dr. Sechrist and Dr. Sherman. Then you had Dr. Creighton. Dr. Creighton was the latest one. I used to work for him when I was going to high school, going to college. I used to work for him.
Muñoz: What did you do for him?
Hawkins: Cleaned house.
Muñoz: Okay. And when you were born back in Louisiana, you don’t remember if you were born at home or at the hospital?
Hawkins: I’m quite sure it was at home [with a] midwife.
Muñoz: With a midwife. Okay. Any folklore stories that were passed down?
Hawkins: Uh-uh, not that I can remember.
Muñoz: Alright. How about sheepherding? Do you remember sheepherding in Flagstaff?
Hawkins: No, I know there used to be a lot of sheepherders, but I don’t know anything about 'em.
Muñoz: Alright. That’s going to conclude our interview.
Hawkins: I want to thank you.
Muñoz: And I want to thank you! You have had such a marvelous time growing up, and remembering all of this. It’s amazing, isn’t it?
Hawkins: Yeah, it is. It’s getting away from me.
Muñoz: You’re lettin’ it slide away, huh?
Hawkins: I’ve got one of my cousins working on the family tree, and I’m trying to remember. She’s hounding me now. She’s getting information on the family. So I hope she can get it all together before I kick the bucket. (laughs)
Muñoz: Seems like you’re a strong woman, and you won’t kick the bucket too soon, no. Great. Do you know, when I was asking you about Prohibition and that, did you ever get to find out what the recipe was to make all that, the whiskey?
Hawkins: Oh, no. When I went to McNary to visit, the Revenue guys used to go through where there were black folks there, and set out the mash. They called it mash. What they did with it.... I know the first time I got drunk.... One of my sisters died, and my mother sent me to McNary to live with my brother while she went to the funeral. And she carried my baby brother, but she took my brother Willie and I, [unclear] my brother Mos and my brother Leon and my sister Rebecca. And they had gone through the town, they went through the town, settin’ out all this mash, and I went and got me a cup, and I started drinkin’ it, and I crawled under the bed and went to sleep. When my sister came lookin’ for me, my girlfriend, her name was Mabel, she said, "Ms. Rebecca, you know what’s wrong with Ollie? She been drinkin’ that mash." And my sister went and drug me out from under the bed and took me outside, put me on a stump, and just threw water in my face and all over me to sober me up. [unclear] Those Revenue guys went through the town. Looked like to me they would have throwed it out, or did somethin’, but they took it out and set it out in the street, you know. Everybody in the house, sittin’ it out....
Muñoz: On the street.
Hawkins: Uh-huh. And I drank some of it and got drunk. That’s the only time I remember that drinkin’ business.
Muñoz: Alright, Ollie, thank you very much again.

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NAU.OH.97.68.45B
161257
Ollie Hawkins (Part 2)
Interviewed by Delia Ceballos Muñoz
January 31, 2000
Muñoz: Alright, let’s go back to Richland Shipyard. And you worked at the shipyards?
Hawkins: Yup.
Muñoz: And you were saying you wanted to join the service.
Hawkins: I wanted to join the service, but I wanted to go into the Waves, and at that time they wasn’t acceptin’ black women into the Waves.
Muñoz: Really?
Hawkins: They turned me down. They didn’t give me no good reason, but I knew what it was.
Muñoz: You thought it was your color then, huh?
Hawkins: Uh-huh.
Muñoz: Okay, so then you decided to stay in Richland?
Hawkins: I went to work in the shipyard, because like I said, I had three brothers in the service, and a nephew, and a lot of other friends, [unclear]. The war was going on, and I wanted to help build ships, so that’s [unclear] shipyard.
Muñoz: So what did you do?
Hawkins: I was a welder-got to be a certified journeyman welder.
Muñoz: Did you have to take a test to get certified?
Hawkins: We had to go to school. They trained us in the shipyard. We went to school to learn how to weld. It was three different phases of welding you had to learn. You had to learn how to do vertical, overhead, and flat. That’s the three main things you had to learn about welding. Like when you weld something together up overhead, that’s what they call overhead. The vertical was when you went....
Muñoz: Up and down.
Hawkins: Joined together. And down flat was like that. So I learned how.
Muñoz: How long did you do that?
Hawkins: ’Til just before the war end. I saw where the war was comin’ to an end, and I decided to go into government work. I took the examination there for the postal service, and I worked for the postal service until I retired in 1987, with thirty-three years, five months, and twenty-seven days as a postal clerk.
Muñoz: That’s great.
Hawkins: And I’m still.... I joined the union, and I worked in the interest of women, immigration, and women, better working conditions. And I’m still connected with the American Postal Workers’ Union. I still belong to a coalition of labor union women, and I still work for the betterment of women in the post office, which we call POWER, Post Office Women Equal Rights group. I still work with that. And I’m working with.... We’re building a park in Richland in honor of women that worked in the shipyards. And I’m one of the honorees for that now. I’m on that committee, and [unclear].
Muñoz: That’s great.
Hawkins: I was just on CNN a couple of weeks ago.
Muñoz: Really?!
Hawkins: A couple of weeks ago. I told Jean I wish I’d brought the tape. They sent me a tape of the CNN interview.
Muñoz: I want to see it! Maybe we can have a copy. I’ll send money and get a copy of it and mail it to me.
Hawkins: I told Jean I was gonna send it back to her. Everybody said, "Oh, I saw you on CNN!" They was all from Los Angeles, "Oh, I saw you on CNN!"
Muñoz: So you’re a celebrity.
Hawkins: But I worked with all of it.
Muñoz: Great.
Hawkins: But now, since I’ve gotten up in age, they keep tellin’ me, "C’mon, come do that, come do...." I say, "Y’all forget I’m old now. I’m not young anymore."
Muñoz: And you were on CNN because of POWER?
Hawkins: No, the work with the park.
Muñoz: Building the park.
Hawkins: They did the interviews, they’re trying to get federal funding for the park.
Muñoz: Alright. We talked about the Forty-niner celebration, and that’s the only one that you remember? That was before the powwows.
Hawkins: Yeah, powwow.
Muñoz: And then the powwows came, the Fourth of July. And then was there any other celebrations?
Hawkins: No. Out at the city park they’d always have the carnival, you know.
Muñoz: How about within the African American community, what type of celebrations did they have?
Hawkins: We didn’t have anything. The Nineteenth of June was the only thing we really had, but we didn’t have much celebration. The only thing we’d do, uptown they would tell 'em [unclear] let the blacks get drunk and fight, whatever, but don’t arrest none of 'em unless they do somethin’ real bad. They turned their back on whatever we were doin’, [as long as] it wasn’t anything real bad. You know, Nineteenth of June is supposedly black folks’ day, for the freein’ of the slaves, you know. Yeah, Nineteenth of June is like Cinco de Mayo.
Muñoz: No, the Sixteenth of September.
Hawkins: Sixteenth of September and Cinco de Mayo too [unclear].
Muñoz: Yeah, independence of the slaves, okay. And then where was this located, the Nineteenth of June, your celebration-uptown?
Hawkins: See, this was just the south side. Jack The Rabbit, and Joe Griego had a saloon. That was the only saloon you could go into-Griego’s. So the black folk got drunk and danced, had parties in houses. Wasn’t nothin’ big. Now, like in San Francisco and everything, Nineteenth of June, they have a big celebration.
Muñoz: And we talked about the churches, which is the Baptist Church on Alvin Street, and then you decided to change and go to the Methodist one on San Francisco.
Hawkins: Yeah. And then they had Spring Hill Baptist Church, which was [unclear] they moved it [unclear]. That’s where Spring Hill Baptist is now.
Muñoz: Down O’Leary?
Hawkins: Yeah, it’s on O’Leary. Used to be up there on Coconino Avenue. That used to be Coconino Avenue up there. I don’t know what it is now. Is it still Coconino Avenue?
Muñoz: Uh-huh, still Coconino. So you had that Spring Hill Baptist Church.
Hawkins: Baptist Church was up there, uh-huh.
Muñoz: And then what other churches? Is that it?
Hawkins: Well, they had a Church of God in Christ, but Holiness Church, that didn’t materialize too much. They had a little house meetings or something, I don’t know.
Muñoz: Okay, let’s see here. How about when an African American would pass away, when they’d die, where was the cemetery?
Hawkins: [unclear] same thing.
Muñoz: The same thing. How about services?
Hawkins: They had 'em in the churches, like they do. Compton was the undertaker at that time. My oldest brother died in 1928, nineteenth of June, 1928. My grandmother died the twentieth of January, 1930. And my sister died the day I left going to college, September 5, 1935. And they’re buried out there. And of course [unclear] her father just died in ’89. He’s in a crypt out there. I went out yesterday and looked at the grave.
Muñoz: How about weddings? Do you remember the weddings that were taking place among the African American people?
Hawkins: I don’t remember too much. The only one I can remember real good was when Esther and Travis Morrison got married. Pearl Pope had a big wedding for [her daughter] in Charles Escoto’s Hall, where they had the wedding. That was the biggest wedding [unclear]. I don’t remember anybody else’s wedding during that time.
Muñoz: And baptismals?
Hawkins: They used to have baptizing in the Seventh-day Adventist Church there on Northview. They had a Seventh-day Adventist Church on Northview. They used their pool to baptize people in. I think the pastor’s name at that time was Baker, if I’m not mistaken.
Muñoz: Traditional foods , like your mom came from Louisiana, that’s where her roots are at, right-and your roots.
Hawkins: Uh-huh.
Muñoz: Did your mom ever talk about her mother, where she came from?
Hawkins: No. I just finally got my grandmother’s death certificate. My grandmother died here in 1930, and I’m trying to work on the family tree. And I sent for her death certificate, and I sent 'em six dollars, because I knew I got my brother’s death certificate, so I sent six dollars. They sent it back and told me that it would cost ten dollars, and I had to have it certified. So I sent 'em the ten dollars, I had it certified. They wanted to make sure I wasn’t getting it for some purpose of obtaining some kind of legal procedures or something. So then I sent it back, sent 'em the ten dollars, certified. Notarized! That’s what it was-notarized. I had to pay ten dollars for that. I sent it back to Phoenix. I had to send it three times. So finally I sat down and I wrote 'em a letter and said, "Now, look, that was my grandmother, she died at 219 North Kendrick Street on January 20, 1930, and I’m trying to do a family tree of my family. First I sent you ten dollars; the next thing you did, it would cost ten dollars, and then I had to pay ten dollars.... Now here I got again. Does it take an act of Congress for me to get my grandmother’s death certificate?!" They sent it to me.
Muñoz: Good for you!
Hawkins: Three times, I had to go three times.
Muñoz: You sound like your mother-you’re quite the fighter!
Hawkins: I was real mad. I told 'em, "Do I have to get ahold of my congressman, Diane Feinstein or Barbara Boxer, or go to Willy Branson [phonetic], all my political friends?" because I’m a staunch Democrat, and I worked with all them political guys up there. Now I can’t do like I want to do [unclear].
Muñoz: Do you remember the Depression here in Flagstaff?
Hawkins: Uh-huh.
Muñoz: What was that like, and how did it affect your family?
Hawkins: It didn’t affect us, because like I was tellin’, during deer season, the folks were out there huntin’ deer. They had a big buck and a big doe, and everybody was goin’ out there killin’ a big buck [unclear]. "Take it down there to Addie and them children." We had all the venison we could eat. Had a man that did trappin’ for bear. We had bear meat. And by this bein’ big pinto bean country, when they raised all them pinto beans, when they through gathering the pinto beans, then they’d tell my mother, "Come on out, bring all of 'em, and gather." Then we’d go out and gather, and we had big bean boils. Anything that they had plenty of, they’re gonna send it to Mama and the children. "Send it down there to Addie and those children." We didn’t see no.... Mother used to work-it used to be the Beckwood girls, Catherine and Mary Beckwood. Ms. Beckwood was the matron at the college up there. She took care of the girls’ dormitory up there. And all the clothes, [unclear] got rid of clothes and all, give 'em to my mother.
Muñoz: For the kids?
Hawkins: For the kids-hand-me-downs. We had a lot of hand-me-downs.
Muñoz: So you were always clothed then?
Hawkins: Yeah, we always had clothes and shoes.
Muñoz: What dormitory was that?
Hawkins: That Ms. Beckwood run? They called her Lady "B." Lady Beckwood. I’ve forgotten, but it was one over there.
Muñoz: At the campus?
Hawkins: Yeah, uh-huh.
Muñoz: Okay, we’re getting close here to finishing. Do you remember any crime in Flagstaff?
Hawkins: Yeah, we had several people killin’ one another.
Muñoz: Where was this at?
Hawkins: One fellah killed one up there on South San Francisco just before you get to Clay Street. Carl Mangum was the district attorney then. We used to love to go.... He was quite a guy. He was a handsome fellah, and he could really argue a case. The people would just flock up there to the courthouse just to hear him present the cases. We had several people-one preacher killed a man about his girlfriend, I guess. Reverend Blanch [phonetic] killed Joe.... Yeah, we had several people that got killed like that. Reverend Blanch killed Joe [unclear] Joe’s wife. They got into argument.
Muñoz: Joe who?
Hawkins: I forget. I can’t think of Joe’s last name.
Muñoz: Okay. How about the red light district?
Hawkins: Oh, they had one woman down there on the River de Flag, her name was Carrie Lee. And then the woman had Casa del Norte. Marie had Casa del Norte. And then really it was over here, just before you get to the railroad track over there-Reenie [phonetic]. They had those houses.
Muñoz: What was her name again?
Hawkins: Her name was Reenie. And Carrie Lee and Marie. Marie had Casa del Norte, and Carrie Lee had the house right on the riverbank, on San Francisco Street, just on the corner with River de Flag. And Reenie was right over there. I can’t think of the name of the street now.
Muñoz: Butler? It used to be Clay?
Hawkins: No. You know where the old Chinese laundry was?
Muñoz: Yes.
Hawkins: Reenie was right on the corner, one block down, on the corner of that street and the first street [unclear]. I forget what the name of that street is now.
Muñoz: Verde? Or Agassiz?
Hawkins: Agassiz! Yeah, that’s what it was, was Agassiz-Phoenix Avenue and....
Muñoz: Were these women white women, black women, Hispanic women?
Hawkins: Carrie Lee was black. Marie was Spanish, because she had Casa del Norte, and Reenie was white. Reenie had black women that was maids. They wasn’t women in the house, they took care of whatever they did.
Muñoz: Okay, took care of the gentlemen, you mean?
Hawkins: No, the women....
Muñoz: The black women were the housekeepers?
Hawkins: Yeah, whatever they do, they serve 'em drink or whatever. They were mostly waitresses or something. They didn’t have an affair with the men.
Muñoz: They were like servants.
Hawkins: Yeah. And Carrie Lee had one-she had a black woman that served in her house, served the drinks and took care of, you know.... But I don’t know what Casa del Norte did, because Marie had a hotel, Del Norte Hotel.
Muñoz: Okay, Prohibition, during the bootlegging time....
Hawkins: Ohhh! Yeah, the poor black men went to jail a lot for selling the Indians whiskey. That was one of the things that they got in trouble for.
Muñoz: For selling the Indians whiskey?
Hawkins: Because they didn’t allow Indians to have whiskey, booze-they’d get on the warpath. And was a big thing. And then they sent you to Prescott. You went to Prescott to serve time. They’d put you in jail. The Revenue officers would pick you up for sellin’ the Indians whiskey. They’d send you to jail, you served time down in Prescott.
Muñoz: Wow.
Hawkins: Now the Indians can go in and buy all the booze they want to buy.
Muñoz: But before, it was against the law, huh?
Hawkins: Against the law, yeah. There used to be a lot of black people that pulled tricks on poor Indians. I had a lot of Indian friends: Jimmy Kewanwytewa that worked out at the Museum of Northern Arizona. They were very close, good friends of mine. I know their daughter and son live down in Phoenix. I don’t know Kewanwytewas was at the reunion or not, because I didn’t [unclear] like I wanted to.
Muñoz: When did you have this reunion?
Hawkins: The eighth, ninth, and tenth of this month. We were at Little America over there last Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.
Muñoz: Oh! What was it called, the reunion?
Hawkins: It was called Flagstaff High School’s Reunion.
Muñoz: Okay. What year?
Hawkins: It went from 1924 to 1955.
Muñoz: Oh, how interesting. So that’s where you met all your schoolmates.
Hawkins: Yeah, I met them this week. George Nackard’s wife, I just got off the phone talking, just before you came in.
Muñoz: Is that right?!
Hawkins: Uh-huh. Poor little George, [unclear].
Muñoz: Oh no. Let’s see, Prohibition. So these poor black men that sold whiskey to the Indians, did they make their own booze?
Hawkins: No, they’d go in the bar and buy. The Indians would give 'em the money to go buy it, and they’d go in and buy it and come back and give it to 'em. And then that’s when they’d catch 'em givin’ it to 'em. So they made money off of 'em. I guess if they paid five dollars for a pint of whiskey, then you would make a couple extra dollars on it, you know-somethin’ like that, I guess. But I had Jimmy Kewanwytewa, they was good friends of mine, and if they wanted some booze, they’d come and see me and I’d just go down there and get it, come on back and give it to 'em. I went to school with his children. But they were out at Colton, Northern Arizona Museum out there, and they were real good friends of mine. Sometimes they’d come and pick me up and I’d go out to their house and have dinner, and then I’d take a bottle [unclear]. But I’d never get in trouble doin’ it because we were doing it intelligently, you know. They were real good friends of mine. When the Indians would come into town and look for somebody out there on the street, they’d be runnin’ around lookin’ for somebody to get 'em some booze, and somebody who’d want to make some extra money. And then the Revenue people would see 'em, put 'em in jail.
Muñoz: The transportation during the time your mom had her kids here, did she ever own a car?
Hawkins: No. I remember my mother owned a truck. My brother used to work for the Flagstaff Furniture Company, and they got rid of their truck, so my mother bought that old truck so they could haul wood and get wood in for the winter.
Muñoz: Oh, from the furniture company?
Hawkins: Yeah, it used to be old Flagstaff Furniture Company. The Browns used to have it.
Muñoz: The Browns owned it-Flagstaff Furniture Company?
Hawkins: Uh-huh. My sister used to drive the truck. She loved it. And my brother would drive the truck. They’d go out in the woods and gather wood for the wintertime. That’s the reason why my mother bought it.
Muñoz: Great. Let’s see, medicine. What types of medicine were used at home at the time you were growing up?
Hawkins: Oh Lord, I don’t remember. They used all kinds of asfidity like any kind of disease come along, you wore asfidity around your neck. If you got a cold, you put kerosene on sugar. And then they had some kind of stuff, my mother had some kind of mulligum [phonetic] you could go out and pull the mulligum and they’d use it. They had all kinds of remedies, and they were good remedies too!
Muñoz: Yes!
Hawkins: I wish to goodness I could remember to get aholt of some of 'em now.
Muñoz: So you could use 'em, huh?
Hawkins: And rheumatism, they used to take worms and put 'em in the stove and they’d get oily, and then they’d rub with the oil that come out of the worms. There’s a lot of things that they did, old-fashioned stuff.
Muñoz: It’s a tradition that was passed down from family to family.
Hawkins: And see, my family’s got part Indian in 'em. My father was part Indian, and my grandmother was part Indian, and they had all those Indian traits too. I can’t remember them now. I wish to goodness I could think about a lot of 'em.
Muñoz: You mentioned a couple of doctors.
Hawkins: Dr. Sechrist and Dr. Sherman. Then you had Dr. Creighton. Dr. Creighton was the latest one. I used to work for him when I was going to high school, going to college. I used to work for him.
Muñoz: What did you do for him?
Hawkins: Cleaned house.
Muñoz: Okay. And when you were born back in Louisiana, you don’t remember if you were born at home or at the hospital?
Hawkins: I’m quite sure it was at home [with a] midwife.
Muñoz: With a midwife. Okay. Any folklore stories that were passed down?
Hawkins: Uh-uh, not that I can remember.
Muñoz: Alright. How about sheepherding? Do you remember sheepherding in Flagstaff?
Hawkins: No, I know there used to be a lot of sheepherders, but I don’t know anything about 'em.
Muñoz: Alright. That’s going to conclude our interview.
Hawkins: I want to thank you.
Muñoz: And I want to thank you! You have had such a marvelous time growing up, and remembering all of this. It’s amazing, isn’t it?
Hawkins: Yeah, it is. It’s getting away from me.
Muñoz: You’re lettin’ it slide away, huh?
Hawkins: I’ve got one of my cousins working on the family tree, and I’m trying to remember. She’s hounding me now. She’s getting information on the family. So I hope she can get it all together before I kick the bucket. (laughs)
Muñoz: Seems like you’re a strong woman, and you won’t kick the bucket too soon, no. Great. Do you know, when I was asking you about Prohibition and that, did you ever get to find out what the recipe was to make all that, the whiskey?
Hawkins: Oh, no. When I went to McNary to visit, the Revenue guys used to go through where there were black folks there, and set out the mash. They called it mash. What they did with it.... I know the first time I got drunk.... One of my sisters died, and my mother sent me to McNary to live with my brother while she went to the funeral. And she carried my baby brother, but she took my brother Willie and I, [unclear] my brother Mos and my brother Leon and my sister Rebecca. And they had gone through the town, they went through the town, settin’ out all this mash, and I went and got me a cup, and I started drinkin’ it, and I crawled under the bed and went to sleep. When my sister came lookin’ for me, my girlfriend, her name was Mabel, she said, "Ms. Rebecca, you know what’s wrong with Ollie? She been drinkin’ that mash." And my sister went and drug me out from under the bed and took me outside, put me on a stump, and just threw water in my face and all over me to sober me up. [unclear] Those Revenue guys went through the town. Looked like to me they would have throwed it out, or did somethin’, but they took it out and set it out in the street, you know. Everybody in the house, sittin’ it out....
Muñoz: On the street.
Hawkins: Uh-huh. And I drank some of it and got drunk. That’s the only time I remember that drinkin’ business.
Muñoz: Alright, Ollie, thank you very much again.